March 8th, 2012
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Beverly Hills, California
Sarah Walker felt like she was swimming. Swimming through a body of somewhat opaque… something.
There was light – just enough to see by. It gave her no sense of direction, no way to tell where she was going. So she just kept going forward.
Without warning, there was a sharp pain in her abdomen. She gasped.
With the pain, though, the light increased in one direction. She headed that way.
The pain didn’t get any worse, it just stayed steady. But the light got brighter, brighter, brighter…
And finally, her eyes cracked open. She could see that she was in a hospital room. That made sense; the last thing she remembered was being unloaded from an ambulance outside of Cedars-Sinai, after getting shot by General Beckman.
That was probably why her stomach hurt, too. Getting shot and the surgery that likely followed would’ve done that to anybody.
She rolled her head to the left and saw the promised land – or, at least, a morphine drip. She knew that she could increase that, reduce the pain. However, she didn’t have one of those handy dandy little morphine remotes, and for some reason, her arms just weren’t cooperating to move to the control.
Sarah looked down toward the end of the bed. Chuck and Ellie stood there, speaking in low tones. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, and it didn’t appear that they noticed that she was awake.
“Hey,” she tried to say, but nothing came out but air. She took a deep breath, made her mouth as wet as she possibly could, and forced out a croak that resembled, “Hey!”
Chuck and Ellie’s heads both whipped toward her. “Water,” she croaked.
Ellie grabbed a squeeze bottle off the table beside the bed. She put the straw into Sarah’s mouth, and squeezed. Sarah sucked on it greedily.
When she had finally had enough, she nodded. “Leave the bottle,” Sarah told Ellie, finally getting her left arm to respond to commands. She took the bottle in her hand, so that she would have water readily available.
“Would one of you mind seriously turning up my morphine drip?” Sarah asked. “My stomach, it is killing me.”
“Not a problem,” Ellie said, hitting a button to turn the drip up one notch. “It’ll take a moment before you feel it – I don’t want to overdo it and have you end up hooked.”
“Probably a good call,” Sarah replied. “Being a junkie mother is not on my list of things to do.”
Ellie and Chuck both started to smile, but as soon as she finished her statement, both of their smiles grew strained. Something was wrong.
“What?” Sarah said. “Did I say something offensive?”
“Ummm…” Chuck spoke for the first time, and it was nothing more than a hesitation.
“Come on, guys, give it to me straight. Am I gonna live?” Sarah asked sarcastically.
Ellie sighed and put a hand to her forehead. “You’re going to be fine,” Dr. Woodcomb said. “It’s just…”
Sarah groaned. “I really did not want to hear a ‘it’s just’,” she said. “What’s going on?”
Chuck took Sarah’s right hand in his hands as Ellie spoke. “Sarah, you were four weeks pregnant when General Beckman shot you,” Ellie said. “But… the bullet penetrated your uterus and did irreparable damage. They had to abort the pregnancy and perform a hysterectomy.”
Sarah’s eyes widened, and she felt like her breath had been sucked out of her by a vacuum. She moved her hands to her stomach, as if she could actually feel the fact that the part of her that could create life was gone.
“No,” she whimpered. “No, it can’t be. Chuck? Please tell me that it’s not true!”
She looked up at Chuck, and the desperation on her face broke his heart. He already had tears streaming down his face, and the look on her face was almost too much for him to handle. He tried to say something, but no words would come, so he just nodded.
John Casey and Devin Woodcomb were sitting in the hallway outside of Sarah Walker Bartowski’s room. Neither of them was prepared for the ear-splitting scream that came from within.
Both men leaped out of their chairs, and burst into the room. Sarah’s heart monitor was beeping furiously, and the IV line that her morphine drip was mounted on had ripped out of her arm, leaving a small stream of blood running down her arm.
Sarah herself had started hyperventilating, and Chuck and Ellie were both having to physically restrain her to keep her from hurting herself. Her face was bright red, and when she was able to collect her breath, she screamed again.
“WHY?!”
That was enough. Casey reached out and hit the nurse call button, while Devin stuck his head out the door.
“YOU!” he shouted at a nurse down the hall. “I need a sedative in here, stat!”
The nurse nodded, and dashed off. A moment later, she reappeared, syringe in hand, with Dr. Wathen and Dr. Zinn hot on her heels.
The nurse ran into the room, and went directly to Sarah’s bedside. “Hold her arm down!” she ordered Chuck, who grabbed Sarah’s arm and held it to the bed. The nurse stabbed the needle into Sarah’s bicep and depressed the plunger.
Almost immediately, Sarah stopped thrashing around and her breathing slowed. The heart monitor started to slow as well, and her eyelids drooped. The nurse reinserted the IV line.
“I think she might need a little rest,” the nurse told them all.
Nobody dared argue with her, not after what had just happened. Chuck, Ellie, Devin, and Casey all exited to the hallway. Dr. Zinn and Dr. Wathen stayed in the room for a moment, checking Sarah’s sutures, making sure she hadn’t torn anything open. A moment later, they joined the other four in the hallway.
Chuck was white and shaking. “Mr. Bartowski, are you alright?” asked Dr. Wathen, a look of concern on his face.
“I… I’ll be okay,” Chuck replied softly. “I just… I can’t stand seeing her like that.”
Dr. Wathen nodded his head. “Did that happen after you broke the news?”
“Yeah,” Chuck said. “We told her, and she just snapped. I thought she had gone around the bend.”
“She likely did, very briefly,” Dr. Zinn replied. “It’s called a psychotic episode. It’s very unlikely she’ll remember any of it, and I imagine it’ll be a one time occurrence. She’ll probably remember everything up until it – including the fact that you told her about the pregnancy and the hysterectomy, but she won’t remember the episode itself.”
“We’ll want to have a psych analysis to be sure,” Dr. Wathen added, “but I doubt if you’ll see something like this again. It was probably just the shock of the news so shortly after the trauma of being shot that caused it.”
Chuck held his head in his hands. “What can I do?”
“Surround her with family and friends,” Wathen replied. “The people she knows and loves. It might be helpful to have your children here the next time she wakes up – and you’ll have a few hours, because I think I’d like to keep her under until this evening at least.”
“Whatever you think is best,” Chuck replied, nodding.
As Drs. Wathen and Zinn walked away, Chuck looked up at his sister, his brother-in-law, and his chief protector. “I need to make a couple of phone calls, guys.”
He stood, and walked down the hall away from them. Pulling his iPhone from his belt, he brought up the text message from Bryce. He didn’t know if a reply would go through, but he knew he was going to try.
Need you in L.A., now was the message. He hit send, and while he was scrolling through recent calls for the number he needed, he got a reply.
Be there tonight – BL.
“Thank you, Bryce,” Chuck whispered, as he found the number and hit the call button.
“Hansen, secure,” he heard on the other end.
“Carina, it’s Chuck.”
“Chuck! How’s Sarah?”
Chuck sighed. “She’s okay… but she really needs a lot of moral support right now. Can you come to Los Angeles?”
“Of course,” Carina replied. “God, are you sure she’s alright? I mean, for you to voluntarily drag me into this… that must be pretty bad.”
“I’ll tell you about it when you get here,” Chuck replied.
“Alright, Chuck. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
Chuck hung up, and then dialed 411. When the operator picked up, he said, “Boston, Massachusetts, the Beacon Hill Convalescent Home.”
“One moment while we connect your call.”
After two rings, the phone was picked up. “Good afternoon, thank you for calling the Beacon Hill Convalescent Home. How may I direct your call?”
Chuck sighed. “I need to speak to Sergeant Major Marcus Lind Reynolds, please.”
“May I tell the Sergeant Major who’s calling?”
“Yes, this is his son-in-law, Charles Bartowski.”
“Just a moment, please, Mr. Bartowski.”
He was put on hold, and he almost laughed at the oddity of hearing an elevator version of the Eagles while on hold. Then the phone was picked up again.
“This is Reynolds.”
“Mark, it’s Chuck Bartowski.”
“Chuck!” the retired Army Sergeant Major said. “How’s it going?”
“Not well, sir,” Chuck replied, picking his words delicately. He had to be very careful to not set off one of Marcus Reynolds’ mental episodes. “Um, your daughter is in the hospital, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d be able to come out here, sir.”
He heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end. “Why is she in the hosp – no, you know what, don’t tell me. I don’t want to set off one of my episodes. I’ll talk to the folks here, and I’ll be on the first flight to Los Angeles that I can get on.”
“We’ll be waiting for you, sir.”
7:00 P.M., Pacific Daylight Time
Dr. Zinn had arranged for Chuck to borrow one of Cedars-Sinai’s small classrooms. That was the advantage to being a teaching hospital – plenty of meeting space.
And they needed it. As Chuck sat in the front of the room next to Dr. Wathen, he watched as a dozen adults and three toddlers filed into the room – Mark Reynolds, Casey, Ellie, Devin, Morgan, Anna, Bryce, Rachel Harrison (who had flown Bryce), Carina, Mitch Tucker (who had flown Carina), Sam Tyler, Senator Art Graham, and Katie Woodcomb, John, and Lisa– all three of whom had come with Morgan and Anna. John and Lisa seemed to immediately identify Mark as “Grandpa”, and gravitated toward him.
“Hi, everybody,” Chuck said. He could hear his own exhaustion in his voice – he’d been up for nearly sixteen hours, with only fitful bits of sleep, after perhaps three hours the night before. “Um, as some of you are aware, we had a home invasion this morning. An individual who wanted to abduct John and Lisa infiltrated our house.
“John and Lisa began talking when she entered their room. Sarah heard them, and went to investigate. The intruder shot Sarah in the stomach. I had just gone into the hallway, and when the intruder shot Sarah, I entered the room and shot the intruder. The intruder was killed.”
He could see the faces of his friends and family as they reacted. Each one was different – but Mark Reynolds seemed to have grown a face of stone. “I’m going to let Dr. Mark Wathen explain what happened from that point,” Chuck said.
Wathen stood. “Like Chuck said, my name is Mark Wathen. I’m one of the lead trauma surgeons here at Cedars-Sinai.
“Mrs. Bartowski was brought in just before four o’clock this morning with a gunshot wound to her abdomen. The bullet that was fired into her was designed to flatten and cause maximum damage before exiting. In this case, it caused damage to her liver and right kidney, shredded her spleen, and nicked her spine. There should be no lasting effects from any of those injuries.”
Dr. Wathen sighed. “It also penetrated her uterus. Mrs. Bartowski was four weeks pregnant at the time; unfortunately, we had to terminate the pregnancy and perform a hysterectomy.”
Several gasps were heard at that point. Mark Reynolds closed his eyes. “My baby girl,” he whispered. “My poor baby girl.”
“When Mrs. Bartowski awakened this afternoon, her husband and her sister-in-law, who as you know, is herself an M.D., informed her of what had occurred. The shock of being told caused her to have a psychotic episode, and we had to sedate her. We believe that she should be fine; however, her mental state right now is such that it was suggested to Mr. Bartowski that it would be wise to have as many of her friends and family here as possible – thus why you’re here.”
“Can we see her?” Mark Reynolds asked. His two grandchildren, sitting on his knees, both started asking, “Mama? Mama?”
“Of course,” Dr. Wathen replied. “However, I think it would be best if you only went in no more than two at a time.”
The nurse opened the door and turned the lights on low. “I wouldn’t recommend any more than fifteen, maybe twenty minutes,” she said.
Mark Reynolds and Chuck Bartowski stepped into Sarah’s room, each with a child in their arms. Aside from being a little pale, Sarah looked fine physically – her wound and surgery scars were covered by the blanket and by her gown.
As if she sensed their presence in the room, she began to stir, and she opened her eyes. The first person she saw was her father.
“Daddy?” she whispered, sounding for all the world like a little girl.
“I’m here, baby,” he said, doing his best to fight back tears. He knelt by the bed, setting John on the edge of the bed, and hugged Sarah.
“Mama,” John said quietly, and crawled up to Sarah to wrap his arms around her.
“Mama?” Lisa asked, looking plaintively up at Chuck. Chuck nodded, and set her down on the bed as well. Lisa crawled up to join her brother.
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she pulled back from her father and wrapped her arms around her twin children. She hugged them tight, as if she would never let them go again.
“I love you two so much,” she sobbed.
“Alavu, Mama,” Lisa replied, which only made Sarah cry even harder.
After a moment, her tears subsided. She looked up at Chuck, face red and eyes shining.
“Chuck, what are we gonna do? I… I wanted these two to have a little brother… or a little sister… and now that – that can nev-“
She couldn’t finish her sentence, and broke down in tears again. Chuck, who himself was on the verge of losing it at that point, knelt down next to her, and wrapped her and the twins in a hug.
He stayed there for the rest of their time, until the nurse came back and told them that they needed to go. “Bye bye Mama,” the twins both told her. Sarah kissed them both and very reluctantly let her husband and her father take them.
Chuck and Mark exited into the hallway, where they turned the twins over to Ellie and Devin. Mark looked Chuck in the eyes, and didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Chuck,” he finally said, voice gruff, “thank you for taking care of my little girl. Thank you for taking down the bastard who did this to her.”
“I should’ve been able to keep it from happening,” Chuck said softly.
Mark Reynolds shook his head and put his hand on Chuck’s shoulder. “You can’t think like that,” he said quietly. “That’s what I thought for so long after my wife died, and it landed me in a convalescent home with a mental problem.”
He paused for a moment. “You’ve got to remember that you did everything you could, and because of that, my little Beth is alive, and she’ll be okay. You protected her, and you protected my two grandchildren. A man really can’t ask for much more than that.”
Chuck nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Now, you need to get some rest. You need to be able to take care of her.”
“I agree completely, Chuck,” Ellie said, standing and gently taking Chuck’s arm in her hands. “You need to go home, and you need to get some sleep.”
As she and Chuck walked down the hall, Katie in her arms and Devin behind them with the twins, she leaned over to Chuck and quietly asked, “Beth?”
“Her real name,” Chuck replied. “Elizabeth Lisa Reynolds.”
Ellie looked thoughtful for a moment, and then spoke. “I think I like Sarah Walker better.”
Chuck smiled tiredly. “I really don’t care,” he said. “I love her, no matter what her name is.”
